Witchlight Part 8: Thither over Yonder

The Beatles had killed Bavlorna the hag, and were about to loot her attic.

Date: June 27, 2026

Characters present

• Farvex Dusk: human warlock
• Lionidas: leonin monk
• Shadow Claw: tabaxi cleric
• Philomena Gainsborough: satyr/centaur wizard
• Eiri: some kind of fey barbarian

Character level: 4

Damn Witch, You Live Like This?

The room that the shadow had run out of was filled with enough junk to make a hoarder blush. There was paper, clothes, chairs, tables, children’s coffins, every kind of useless trinket imaginable, and a few that were hard to imagine. Out of the whole mess, a few things caught the group’s eyes: a deer skull, much like the one Clapperclaw had lost; a porcelain jar with chicken feet; a cool helm with a purple crystal covering one eye; and a large frog statue made of bronze, its mouth agape with magical darkness within.

Shadow took the jar with the chicken feet. It had a broken wishbone in it, which he discarded. Eiri took the helm, but didn’t put it on. She said she couldn’t take her other helm off “for personal reasons”, but the others were welcome to try and get it off. Naturally, Vex and Lionidas tried to do so, with Vex holding on to Eiri and Lionidas pulling off the helmet. It didn’t work. It was stuck, and Eiri refused to explain why. She also insisted on being called The Death Knight, to Vex’s refusal.

Philomena felt herself drawn to the frog statue. She stuck her hand into the darkness of its mouth, and pulled out a horseshoe. She held it up to her hoof, and it magically stuck. Suddenly, Philomena the horse satyr was back to being Philomena the centaur. She let out a cry of excitement and literally horsed around for a bit, as best as she could in the ocean of stuff.

The group headed back to the kitchen where they once again met Bloodtoe. She was excited about Bavlorna’s death, because now she could go back to killing whoever she wanted. Vex, still with a single hit point and in no shape to fight, suggested that she could kill and cook small animals instead, or she’d face Zybilna’s wrath when she came back. Bloodtoe supposed she could kill squirrels or something.

The Beatles continued to explore the house that formerly belonged to Bavlorna. They found the missing heart of Octavian in the freezer room, and a bunch of meat that they left alone. They found a room where Bavlorna was clearly brewing moonshine. Lionidas, desperate for a drink, managed to break the machine, blowing it up and knocking himself and Vex unconscious. Fortunately, Shadow had some healing spells left.

Next, they found a secret hallway leading to the living room. It was fortunate that they didn’t use it to ambush Bavlorna, because they became smaller and smaller as they walked through it. When they emerged through the tiny door on the other side, they were as small as mice. They headed back the way they came, and returned to their normal sizes.

Before returning to the toad people, they looked through a room with undead birds who had had their heads swapped with one another. It had balconies with “Thither” and “Yon” written above the doors, where they found offensive messages apparently sent by the other hags. Another balcony had a cage hanging from it with a satyr in it. They pulled up the cage and freed him. He introduced himself as Vansel, and he had met Eiri when they’d both been imprisoned (more or less) by Bavlorna. The party brought him out of there.

They also checked the pantry, where they found a singing mushroom that Eiri brought with her. When they returned to the pool room, Lionidas decided to try the water. It was highly acidic and hurt to bathe in. Turns out there was a gelatinous cube (or really a gelatinous cylinder) in the well where the water sprung from. Thanks to this, Bavlorna had been unable to use the pool’s rejuvenating magic before the battle. The party thanked the acidic blob and left.

The Calm Before the Minor Meterological Disturbance

While riding the raft back to the laughable imitation of society that the bullywugs had built, the party debated a serious conundrum: how were they going to get a centaur into a hot air balloon? Vex suggested they tie Philomena to the balloon with ropes and just have her hang there. Philomena didn’t like it, but had no better suggestion. They settled on waiting until they got to the balloon to decide—maybe the basket would be big enough and it wouldn’t be a problem.

On the way back, they ran into a tree that seemed to be spouting insults at the group. On closer examination, there were some kinds of creatures hiding inside the tree, clearly trying to rile the party up. Lionidas took the bait, and tried to hammer a copper coin into the tree to poison it. This woke the tree up, and it was not pleased.

“Haha! Now you’re going to die!” said one of the voices from inside the tree. But Lionidas ran away, and the tree lost track of him.

Lionidas had run off to a patch of giant mushrooms, and Vex had followed. For a few moments, they were alone. Vex thought this was a good moment to talk about Lionidas’ pretending to be able to see.

“Listen, I’ve figured out your little secret,” said Vex. “I’m not going to tell the others, but you should. You’re putting the party in danger¹.”

“It’s no secret that I hate trees,” answered Lionidas. “Ever since I got that curse that said I had to bow to trees at the Witchlight Carnival, I’ve disliked them.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Then the rest of the group caught up with them. They could hear the depressing music of Octavian, who was sitting on a mushroom, playing his gloomy tunes on his strange double flute. The party gave his heart back, but they didn’t have any way of putting it back where it belonged. They figured Zybilna could take care of it when she came back. As promised, Octavian gave Lionidas his depressing double flute, and he used it to try and depress Vex, who did not enjoy it.

Next, they gave Clapperclaw back his skull, to his delight. They brought him and Morgort the balloon pilot along. When they got to the balloon, they found that its basket was just barely big enough to fit everyone. The issue wasn’t one of space but of weight—it was a wicker basket, and there was no way it could hold the weight of the centaur. There were a few bullywugs putting the final touches on the newly repaired ballon. Vex asked them to reinforce the basket with stronger materials, and they’d be back tomorrow to take off. In the meantime, the party would take a much needed rest.

Vex, Lionidas, and Shadow spent the evening skipping stones into the lake. Shadow was easily the best at it. The next morning, the topic of Eiri’s nature came up during breakfast. I won’t bore you with the details, because Eiri refused to disclose any. Morgort came in and acted as a group therapist, and everyone talked about their motivations for hunting the hags and the things they’d lost. Everyone, that is, except Eiri and Lionidas. Lionidas also made an attempt to pull off one of Eiri’s gauntlets, unsuccessfully. The group also discovered that the helm with the purple crystal had somehow melded itself into Eiri’s helm. Of course, she refused to elaborate. Philomena told the story of her rabbit, which we’ve previously covered. Then it was time to set off for Thither.

A Slightly Perilous Journey to Thither

With the wicker balloon basket reinforced with scrap metal, Philomena was no longer too heavy. Once the balloon had heated up, the party, along with Clapperclaw and Morgort, set off for the foggy skies. Once they were high above Downfall and Hither, they could see a massive castle in the mist. Vex recognized it as the Palace of Heart’s Desire—Zybilna’s home. Morgort explained that they couldn’t fly there directly, but there might be someone in Thither who knew how to get there. And what do you know, their journey into the mist brought them right into Thither.

The moist swamp air turned fresh and the mist cleared to reveal a lush, green forest, like an ocean of green below them. Far off, they saw a massive fallen tree—based on the description from the unicorns at the Witchlight merry-go-round, that was the residence of their next target: Skabatha Nightshade. The party wished to head straight for her, but being passengers in a balloon, they were at the mercy of the wind. And, as it turned out, a dragon.

Straight ahead, a strange, serpentine dragon-like creature flew toward the balloon. It did not look friendly. Shadow cast a spell at it, to little effect. Lionidas desperately tried to think of a way to get on the dragon’s back, but didn’t have any way to do so, and just shot an arrow at it. It bounced right off the scales. Vex actually did have a way to get to the dragon, and so he teleported onto its back. It whipped at him with its tail, but he stayed on. He realized he had no way to control it, and with gently patting its back being ineffective, no way to calm it down either. He watched as it launched flames from its eyes right at the biggest target it could see—the balloon. The fire burnt a massive hole in it, and the whole thing fell out of the sky.

Philomena cast Feather Fall on herself and her falling companions. Unfortunately, the spell couldn’t target everyone, and Morgort got the short end of the stick. Luckily, Morgort had the powerful legs of a bullywug, and was able to jump from the basket onto Philomena’s back and descend safely. Vex held on to the dragon for a few more moments, but eventually got thrown off, Feather Fall-ing himself down to safety. He had set a new personal record in dragon rodeo.

Once they had all found each other after the fall and determined that everyone was alright, the group looked around to try and figure out where they were. There was a particularly tall tree nearby with a parchment attached to it. It was a wanted posted with a picture of a curly-haired child. The poster said that whoever brought the naughty child to Granny Nightshade would be allowed to curse anyone they wanted as reward. The party took it down.

Nearby was a cave with a warm orange light shining inside it. The party approached, finding an old, blindfolded man inside. He was using a spinning wheel to turn gold into golden thread. The party introduced themselves, and then the session ended.